43
Academic Senate forgoes statement on DACA decision
YOUNGSTOWN
Youngstown State University’s Academic Senate will not be issuing a statement regarding President Donald Trump’s decision to end DACA.
Chet Cooper, YSU Academic Senate chairman, said during Wednesday evening’s meeting that although faculty members expressed at last month’s session an interest in providing a statement in opposition of Trump’s decision, he received many emails regarding faculty reservations.
DACA, Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals, is a program protecting undocumented youths from deportation that was passed in 2012 during Barack Obama’s presidency. It gave nearly 800,000 children of undocumented immigrants brought into the country by their parents the opportunity to work in the U.S., and it protected them from deportation if they were accepted into the program.
The Trump administration announced Sept. 5 the program will end in March 2018.
“The Senate executive committee will re-look at that document and return to it at later date,” Cooper said.
Another item the Senate decided to further review is the much-debated Shared Governance document.
The Shared Governance document was drafted by the YSU Excellence Steering Committee – made up of faculty members, administration and trustees – in response to the 2016 Chronicle of Higher Education’s “Great Colleges to Work For” Campus Climate Survey results.
The 2016 results showed faculty members surveyed have a distrust of their senior leadership and administration and cited poor communication and a lack of shared governance.
Shared governance is defined in the YES Committee’s draft as: “The transparent process by which the university community (i.e. faculty, staff, administrators, alumni and students) influences decisions on matters of policy and procedure, and/or to present alternatives on such matters.”
The document can be found at academicsenate.ysu.edu.
Despite months of drafting, reviewing and presenting the document, some Senate members are still displeased.
Some items of concern are specificity of the document to faculty and accountability.
“This document was prepared to be applied across this entire institution,” Cooper said. “This was made so everyone has an avenue of input.”
That input is what Provost Martin Abraham said YSU needs more of from its faculty.
“The purpose of this document is not to throw window dressing on a problem, but to really set a tone for the university,” he said.
Cooper agreed.
“What we are looking for is participation – that is, shared governance,” Cooper said.
He added that he would like to see the document and the Senate move forward.
The document has yet to be finalized.
In other business, Student Government Association President Rayann Atway asked and received an endorsement from the Senate for a project she hopes to get started on soon: single-use restrooms.
The Senate approved the endorsement with only three abstentions.